Gallery About China

Photo taken on Feb. 17, 2006 shows the giant Panda Tuan Tuan (L) and Yuan Yuan play in a breeding base in southwest China's Sichuan Province. This pair of giant pandas is scheduled to travel to the Taiwan island on Dec. 23. They are expected to meet the public at the Spring Festival, the Chinese lunar new year, but that will depend on how they adapt to the new environment.(Xinhua/Chen Xie)

Photo taken on Feb. 17, 2006 shows the giant Panda Tuan Tuan (Top) and Yuan Yuan, who will be sent to Taiwan, play in a breeding base in southwest China's Sichuan Province. (Xinhua Photo)

File Photo taken in July of 2005 shows the giant Panda Yuan Yuan (3rd, R), one of the two pandas which will be sent to Taiwan, drinks milk in the panda kindergarten in southwest China's Sichuan Province.(Xinhua Photo)

1981, a student at the Dalian Institute of Technology skates past a statue of Chairman Mao Zedong, once a popular monument found in virtually every Chinese city and town. Western media used this image as symbolic of the dawn of a new era in China.

1981, a youth brandishes a bottle of Coca-Cola in the Forbidden City. Ever since Deng Xiaoping's reform and opening-up policy, China has been riding an economic boom, attracting huge investment from abroad. Coca-Cola, which was first sold in China in the 1920s, set up its first plant in Beijing in 1980.

1985, Beijing's main parks have long been a huge draw for local residents, who amuse themselves dancing, singing and engaging in a wide variety or exercise programs.

1989, textile workers feed themselves from a communal, bamboo-made rice bowl at a factory in Sichuan. Under the planned economy, jobs at State-owned enterprises and collectives were known as "iron rice bowls" as they provided employees with all they needed to live, including their food. Today, privately owned factories provide job opportunities for much of the population.